Local

Could compensation for a tank of gas or an hour of training help recruit or retain members of the county’s volunteer fire departments?
That’s the idea behind a potential Federal Emergency Management Agency grant brought to Lancaster County Council’s attention during its July 8 meeting.
Morris Russell, director of the county’s Emergency Management and Fire Service office, spoke to council Monday night and requested they allow the Fire Commission to move forward with applying for a Recruitment and Retention grant.

Imagine coming home to find your basement look more like a swimming pool.
This was the case for Lancaster resident Karen Ormand when she got back to her West Barr Street house just after 6 p.m. Thursday, July 11.
The heavy rainfall that day did a number on her basement, which is on the higher end of a slope. Because the ground outside couldn’t absorb all the precipitation, the water found its way indoors.
The site was unwelcoming.

Joe Manning never had the chance to meet Sadie Pfiefer (Phifer). But he knows there is more to her life than gets told through a 100-plus year-old photograph and Manning is desperately trying to find out about her.
The caption in the Lewis Hine photo simply reads, “Sadie Pfiefer, 48 inches high, has worked half a year. One of the many small children at work in Lancaster Cotton Mills. Nov. 30, 1908. Location: Lancaster, South Carolina.”

Joe Manning never had the chance to meet Sadie Pfiefer (Phifer). But he knows there is more to her life than gets told through a 100-plus year-old photograph and Manning is desperately trying to find out about her.
The caption in the Lewis Hine photo simply reads, “Sadie Pfiefer, 48 inches high, has worked half a year. One of the many small children at work in Lancaster Cotton Mills. Nov. 30, 1908. Location: Lancaster, South Carolina.”

If you’ve ever driven out of Lancaster along Great Falls Highway and crossed the Tom Mangum Memorial Bridge, you’ve seen the Fishing Creek Dam off to the right.

Seventy-five feet high and 1,770 feet long, the nearly 100-year-old dam is massive, appearing almost serene in its immovability most days, as quiet eddies swirl away from its powerhouse heading down the Catawba River.

A few eagle-eyed neighbors helped deputies track down and arrest three men in two separate burglary cases early this month.

Franciso Coleman Torres, 17, 9942 Woodville Lane, Indian Land, and Johnathan Casey Deese, 23, of Pageland, are each charged with second-degree burglary after allegedly breaking into a home in the 8300 block of Taxahaw Road on July 2.

Dennis Bernard Talford, 36, 1503 Chandler Place, is also charged with second-degree burglary for allegedly breaking into a home in the 1600 block of Summit Avenue on July 6.

Two men are now behind bars in connection with the brazen, daylight armed robbery of a man in the University Place (Walmart) parking lot Monday, July 8.

Malcolm Shaquille Williams, 18, of Rock Hill, was charged Tuesday evening, July 9, with armed robbery and possession of a handgun during the commission of a violent crime, according to a press release from Lancaster Police Capt. Scott Grant.

Motorists were cautioned Thursday afternoon, July 11, as the National Weather Service in Columbia issued an urban and small stream flood advisory for Lancaster County.

The advisory is in effect for the whole county until 6:15 p.m., according to a NWS release sent Thursday at 5:18 p.m. Radar was showing slow-moving thunderstorms rolling through the county and producing a significant amount of rain.